Why Your Last Three Hires Took Longer Than They Should Have

Time to hire has been rising steadily across UK engineering and technical sectors for the last two years, and it isn't down to a shortage of candidates. In most cases we see, it comes down to four process gaps that show up on nearly every vacancy and compound when they stack together: thin briefs, over-reliance on job boards, inconsistent agency briefing, and slow internal approval.

Each gap on its own adds five to ten days to a hiring cycle. Stacked together on a single role, they routinely turn what should be a four-week process into six to eight weeks. Below is what each one looks like in practice, and what it takes to close them.

1. The brief is too thing to brief recruiters or hiring teams properly

A vacancy gets signed off, but the brief that goes out doesn't capture what actually separates a good candidate from the right one – specific technical requirements, team context, why the role exists now. Recruiters end up sourcing against guesswork, the wrong profile comes through, and the brief gets rewritten two weeks into the search. Those two weeks rarely get logged as lost time, but they are.

2.Job boards are carrying the whole sourcing strategy

Job boards work for active jobseekers. For specialist engineering and technical roles, a large share of the strongest candidates aren't on job boards at all – they're employed, not actively looking, and only move for the right opportunity reaching them directly. A sourcing strategy built solely on job board advertising only ever reaches people who happen to be looking that week.

3. Agencies are working from different versions of the same brief

Multiple agencies briefed quickly, often by phone or a short email, each interpret the role slightly differently. The result is candidates of inconsistent quality, duplicated sourcing effort across agencies, and a hiring manager reviewing CVs that don't match what was actually asked for. Re-briefing fixes it, but costs more time than briefing properly the first time.

4. Internal approval is the bottleneck nobody flags as one

Final sign-off on an offer, a salary band, or a stage-two decision can sit unactioned for several working days. It rarely gets raised as a hiring delay, because technically the process is still moving – it's just moving through approval rather than towards an offer being made.

How much time do these hiring delays actually add up to?

On their own, each of the four gaps above adds roughly five to ten working days. In combination – a thin brief, job-board-only sourcing, inconsistent agency briefing, and approval delay on the same vacancy – the cumulative effect is typically six to eight additional weeks against the original hiring timeline.

Reactive hiring vs. pipeline hiring: what’s the difference?

Reactive hiring starts the search from zero the moment a role opens, whether that's a leaver or new headcount. Pipeline hiring means the sourcing relationships, market mapping, and candidate engagement are already in place before the vacancy exists, so the search starts from a position of readiness rather than a standing start.

This is the core of what an embedded or outsourced RPO partner changes. Instead of sitting outside the hiring process and waiting for a brief to land, Owen Daniels works inside it – owning the sourcing strategy, building the pipeline ahead of need, and removing the four bottlenecks above before they cost weeks. Clients typically see this reflected directly in time to hire and cost per hire.

FAQs

What is the average time-to-hire in engineering & manufacturing?

National averages for the Engineering & Manufacturing sector run well above 32 days, with most organisations experiencing closer to six to eight weeks once the four process gaps above are factored in. Businesses running a structured RPO model with Owen Daniels have brought this down to an average of 32 days.

Does using more recruitment agencies speed up hiring?

Not reliably. Briefing multiple agencies without a consistent process usually produces inconsistent candidate quality and duplicated work rather than a faster outcome, since each agency is working from a slightly different version of the brief.

What is pipeline hiring?

Pipeline hiring means building sourcing relationships, market intelligence, and candidate engagement ahead of an actual vacancy, so that when a role opens, the search doesn't start from zero. It's the opposite of reactive hiring, where sourcing only begins once a vacancy is approved.

When should a business consider an RPO partner?

RPO tends to make the most sense where hiring volume is high, recruitment spend is difficult to control across multiple agencies, candidate attraction is weak, or internal process and technology gaps are slowing hiring down. Owen Daniels works as an embedded RPO partner in these situations – taking on sourcing strategy, candidate attraction, and a dedicated account manager, so the four bottlenecks above stop costing weeks on every vacancy.

For more information on RPO, click here.